The wand and the dove
by Joshyp93
Summary: An amalgam of the world of fairytales and the world of harry potter


**_I have never really grown out of reading Fairy Tales and since _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows _came out and introduced us to the works of Beedle the Bard, I've been wondering how Muggle Fairy Stories fit into the wizard mythology of Rowling's world, if indeed they do at all. Here is a well known tale told from a "wizarding" perspective, complete with Harry Potter terminology. Read it and tell me what you think._**

Several centuries ago, there lived a witch who was incredibly beautiful and talented. She was particularly adept at altering the shape of objects, changing their form completely. Her skills in this field were so extensive that she could turn the smallest of beasts into the grandest of creatures, or a small bud into a majestic tree. She studied with an almost religious devotion and in due course successfully became an animagus; whenever she chose she could turn herself into a large white dove with a rose-pink beak. Her beauty and magical ability were widely known and admired across the Wizarding world and numerous schools and academies of the magical arts sought to persuade her to teach their students what she knew.

It was at one such school in Germany that she met a wizard with whom she fell in love. He was also a teacher, attracted by her incredible beauty and saw her as a prize. He courted her for he was of an ancient family of powerful magical people and was excited at the thought of how powerful his descendants would become if she were the mother of his children. Of course he didn't reveal his true motives to her but played the part of a lover so well that she was taken in and agreed to be his wife. In due course she bore him a son. This excited the wizard greatly and he eagerly anticipated the magic his child would produce.

But the years went by and the child never showed the faintest sign of even the most basic magical gifts. The wizard grew increasingly angry and hateful of his wife and child and blamed her for producing the abomination. He left her in disgrace, revealing that he had never truly loved her and abandoned the child for which he had no love, giving him away despite his wife's anguish to be raised by the non-magical vermin to which he belonged.

The witch, disgraced and abused, vowed never to give her heart to a man again choosing to live instead among the birds that flew freely in the sky. She left her home and family taking only her wand and the beautiful glittering cloak her father had given her for her wedding, which despite the painful memories it now carried had cost her father dearly and had been given will all the love he had for his daughter. Now equipped with all she would need in the world she took to the skies as a dove, swearing never again to become human for birds do not feel and hurt as we do.

She flew for miles across Germany and eventually settled in the garden of a manor house, perching in a large pear tree, abundant in fruit and home to several other birds. The house was home to a rich,muggle merchant, his wife and three daughters. The two eldest daughters were both very pretty but were awkward and clumsy. Their younger sister was the most beautiful little creature the witch had ever seen; kind and pious she came out to the garden each day and sprinkled crumbs of bread and cake under the pear tree for the birds to eat. The birds were not used to such kindness and sang their sweetest songs for her in thanks. The witch (who we must remember still has the appearance of a dove) sang too, more beautifully than the others for she had known human love, and her white plumage stood out against the mottled grey and brown of the others. For the first time since her child had been taken from her, the witch felt she could be content here and chose to remain in the pear tree and to watch the happy family.

She learned that the father loved them all dearly but due to his job he was required to leave the house for long periods and his youngest daughter in particular was devoted to him. The mother _did_ seem kind, and was deeply affectionate to her two eldest daughters, but to the youngest there was always something not quite right in her manner, something forced and steely. This became a lot more pronounced whenever the father came home for then the mother would suddenly change her behaviour and dote just as much on the youngest child as on the other two.

After the father died his wife stopped her pretence. It transpired that she had been resentful, even jealous of the girl and now seized the opportunity to forward the interests of the other children. She encouraged them to tease their sister and took her fine clothes and belongings away from her, claiming that her father had spoilt her. Then she dressed the child in ragged old clothes and made her work, cleaning the house and punished her severely if she paused for even a few minutes. She barely had a chance to wash and gradually became so dirty that she was hardly recognisable. This made her mother and sisters all the happier and they began calling her "Aschenputtel." The spiteful mother then took away the fine silk cushions and linen sheets on which the girl slept, leaving her with straw and sack cloth to use as bedding. The girl frequently came out into the garden at night after her mother and sisters had gone to bed and wept under the pear tree where the witch could easily see her. This made the witch incredibly sad and reminded her of her own son who had been disowned because of his lack of magical power. The witch then resolved to watch over the little girl, promising to comfort her and help her in any way she could. However the pain of what she herself had suffered still pierced her like a dagger and she knew she couldn't do more than sing to the child as a dove.

After ten years of watching and comforting the child with sweet song, the witch noticed three small boys sneak through the hedge into the garden to watch the girl as she worked in the vegetable patch. The witch immediately knew why they were doing this for the girl had by now grown into a young woman and despite the dirt on her face and the ragged clothes she wore she had only increased in loveliness and beauty. Her mother and sisters (who turned out not to be blood relations for the woman had married the girl's father bringing her daughters with her) had grown steadily more hateful of her and made her work harder than ever. The stepsisters in particular were so spiteful to her that their sneers were permanently etched onto their faces so they were not nearly as pretty as they had been in youth.

It transpired one day that all the ladies of the house were invited to a party at the palace, a grand ball. The youngest girl dearly wanted to attend but her stepmother knew that if she appeared at the ball her own daughters wouldn't stand a chance at finding wealthy husbands of noble or royal birth. But cruel as she was she decided to humiliate the girl, setting her the task of picking out lentils which she had purposefully dropped into the ashes in the fireplace and putting them into a large dish. She gave her stepdaughter two hours and promised that if she completed the task she could come with them. It was not the task itself that angered the witch but the happiness in the girl's face as she began the arduous work, for she thought her stepmother was being kind to her. From her perch in the pear tree however, the witch could see the awful woman through an upstairs window laughing with her daughters, one of whom doing mocking impressions of their stepsister begging to be allowed to go and then getting down on all fours and pretending to pick up lentils from the floor. So the witch gathered all the other birds in the tree and together they flew through the open back door and within the hour the ashes were clean and the enormous dish was full of lentils for the birds had easily picked them out with their beaks and eaten the few that were bad. What she didn't know was that the three boys had seen the whole thing from their hiding place in the flowerbeds at the back of the garden; they had eagerly crept in wanting to see the beautiful maid and were just about to leave disappointed when they had seen the flock of birds flying in unison towards the back door and swooping into the house. Their attention wrapt they stayed put watching the birds now, seeing what they were going to do next.

The girl raced upstairs into the bedroom where her stepmother and stepsisters were getting ready for the ball, the sisters were dismayed and gawped at her as she rushed in, unable to work out how she'd finished her task so quickly. Their mother remained composed but through the open window the witch could hear the spiteful tone of her words, saying that she refused to allow her filthy servant girl to accompany the ladies of the house to the palace, calling her an embarrassment. The girl burst into tears and ran out of the room. Her stepsisters fell about giggling and chanting "Aschenputtel! Aschenputtel"!

The poor child ran out into the garden and huddled against the pear tree's trunk sobbing in earnest. The witch then made a difficult decision but she would not see this child abused any further, for she too knew the pain of humiliation by one who pretends to love. "Once those three awful creatures have left", she said to herself "I shall become human again one last time and help this girl for she had been so good to me and my fellow birds and does not deserve such mistreatment".

The girl continued to weep at the base of the tree through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Finally the sisters and their mother left the house, squeezed into their carriage and departed for the palace. The dove fluttered down from her branch and stood in front of the weeping girl. She stood still for a few seconds for she had not lived a human life for more than ten years now and she was frightened of the emotions that might come flooding back when she changed. With a soft "coo" and a faint _pop_ she transformed. There she stood, in her father's glittering hooded cloak, holding her wand in her hand. For a second or two she felt the shock of being human again but she quickly stifled it, she had work to do.

The girl had not noticed the transformation, her face still buried in her hands. After a few seconds she became aware that she was being watched and looked up to see a woman smiling kindly at her, dressed in an exquisite, sparkling cloak and holding a long thin stick in one hand. At first she was frightened, but as she looked into the woman's eyes her fear left her, for they reminded her strangely of the eyes of the large dove with the pink beak who had sung so sweetly to her since her father's death and been her only comfort. The woman stretched out her hands and the girl took them and got to her feet. The witch then waved her wand and the girl felt her tears dry and the dirt leave her face, leaving her skin clear and delicate as a petal. A further swish of the wand and the witch transformed her ragged clothes into a gown of the finest pale blue silk and the tight wooden shoes she wore became gleaming translucent slippers as light as air. It was now time to see if she could still perform as she used to. Pointing her wand at a large pumpkin lying ripe in the vegetable patch, she caused it to levitate and it floated over the exit to the garden. A jab of the wand and the pumpkin swelled and became a magnificent carriage and with another swish the witch turned four mice into grand palomino stallions which she magically harnessed to the coach. Then she saw a lizard and a rat scurrying away from the flashes her wand was causing and with a loud _pop _a finely dressed footman and coach driver appeared and dutifully walked to the glittering carriage. The witch felt confident in her abilities but knew that after ten years her powers were likely to have waned somewhat and therefore that the complex magic she was performing now would not last. She warned the girl of this telling her to be back by midnight. The girl hugged the witch and climbed into the carriage which immediately set off; she was still calling out in thanks as the coach rounded the corner out of sight.

Having done her good deed the witch felt all the pain of her previous life leave her. At last she could move on and felt ready to go home. She prepared to change again into a dove when she heard a twig snap behind her. She turned to see the three boys starring at her looking horrified. They had seen everything. Briskly the witch pointed her wand at the boys and sent a well aimed memory charm at them before disapparating and beginning her new life.

I feel I should explain a little about these boys now. Two of them were brothers, Will and Jacob and the third was a French boy living in Germany who had made friends with the brothers and was called Charles. They had all three been infatuated by the beautiful housemaid and so had crept into the garden every so often to watch her at work and sometimes stole a pear each from the large tree. They had also noticed the large white dove sitting in the branches and found it odd that the bird only sang when the young girl approached the tree. When they saw the flock of birds flying as one through the back door led by the dove and then flying back out again several minutes later they were transfixed by the birds and stayed where they were eager to see what else they would do, maybe even to catch one for themselves as a pet, Will in particular had his eye on the dove. After witnessing the bird transform into a woman and seeing the magic she had performed they were all terrified. Charles had tried to back out of the hedge and run, consequentially snapping the twig under his foot. The woman had turned to them, cast her charm and made them forget all that they had seen.

The problem with a memory charm is that its power is greatly diluted if it is cast at more than one person at once. Since _three_ boys had been hit with the same charm, its effect on them was weakened by a third. Each boy woke up the next morning with no memory of what they had done the previous night and a confused collection of images in their minds which they never completely forgot. Charles remembered a pumpkin…seeing the lady with the stick…the presence of mice the rat and the lizard and the flash of light while Will and Jacob remembered the dove...the flock of birds swooping into the house and gathering the lentils and the pear tree. All three of them remember the beautiful girl in the fine gown and hearing the word "Aschenputtel." All three of them grew to be great writers but because of what they remembered, their versions of the story differed. They all called the title character "Aschenputtel" or as we know her "Cinderella".


End file.
